montage introduction (!!!)

WHAT IS A MONTAGE

a single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many different images

WHAT IS MONTAGE EDITING

p[roduction of a rapid succession of images to create an idea

*ROCKY 4 TRAINING MONTAGE*

Montage is "the nerve of cinema... to determine the nature of montage is to solve the specific problem of cinema." -Sergei Eisenstein, 'A Dialectic Approach to Film Form'

THE PROBLEM WITH FILM: never actually reality, even documentary is not 100% reality
Eisenstein talks about montage solving the problem- what continuous editing achieves (creating a story and evoking emotions which are fake) is different from the emotions that are evoked from montage, which is focusing on the art of film

SOVIET MONTAGE THEORY

Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970)- russian filmmaker and theorist
His idea was that the juxtaposition of different images can lead the viewer to reach different conclusions about the action in a film, and conducted an experiment named after him

THE KULESHOV EFFECT
It's not only the acting or content of the scene that can elicit an emotional response
The viewer brings their own emotional response to what they see

SERGEI EISENSTEIN (1898-1948)

believed that editing could be used for more than just showing a scene
felt that the "collision" of shots could be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience and create film metaphors (two shots not just juxtaposed but crashed together)
differed from kuleshov in believing that "each sequential element perceived not next to each other but on top of each other"
his most famous sequence of early montage editing (in soviet montage style) was the sequence The Odessa Steps from Battleship Potemkin
>lots of perspectives meshed into one
>chaos and fear
>Fast editing, fast cutting
>dynamic movement in cutting matches dynamic movement on screen

EISENSTEIN MONTAGE THEORY
discontinuity editing
violations of continuity rules including the 180 degree rule
transitions between shots deliberately obvious, less fluid, non seamless
argued that montage is inherently dialectical (new ideas emerging from conflict)
developed "methods of montage"
1. metric
"october" 1927
editing follows a specific number of frames regardless of what happens to image
simple relationships between images work best
suitable for simple march time montages
danger can overcomplicate emotionally
2. rhythmic
focuses not on the time between shot changes but key movements within the frame (e.g. eye movement)
good for portraying opposing forces

potemkin shows the soldiers coming in always from the left to the right and the revolutionaries right to left
3. tonal
focuses on emotional meaning of the shots, not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics
4. overtonal
"strike" 1925
interplay of metric, rhythmic and tonal characteristics (pace, idea, emotions) to create more complex response
5. intellectual

inroduction of ideas and associations into the edit
conflict juxtaposition of intellectual affects